Lyra Fernbrook's Arc

Chapter 8 of 18

They walked to the sprite garden with the black feather wrapped in linen at Lyra's hip. Dorian kept one hand near his knife. The drake flew low between the arches of blooming vine, sniffing each blossom. Lyra needed answers, and the sprites had helped her once before. The garden was quiet. The small folk hid in the petals and would not come out, and that told Lyra more than any warning could. An old wood elf woman stepped through the flowered arch. Her hair was gray and braided with twigs. She leaned on a crooked staff, and her breath came fast, as if she had run the last mile. She looked at Lyra and did not bow or greet. "You are the one the grove is hunting," she said. "I am Ithilwen Rootwhisper. The grove spoke your trouble to me three nights ago. I have walked since." Lyra brought her to a stone bench. Dorian stood close. Ithilwen drank from Lyra's flask and steadied herself. "The grove is not angry at you," she said. "It is afraid. Long ago the elves broke the bond by locking a name in music, a name that should never be sung. When you played those two notes, you opened the old wound. The grove is not hunting you to punish you. It is trying to close the wound before what you called can finish the tearing." Lyra unwrapped the feather. The gilded runes caught the light. Ithilwen drew back and pressed her hand to her mouth. "Stymphalian," she said. "A bronze-feathered bird from the deep places. The runes are its true marks. It has claimed you as prey and left this so you would know. There will be a flock, not one. Iron will turn their feathers, but only iron struck to the beat of a living song. Your smith must forge bells. You must play them from a high place at dusk. The birds cannot bear the sound." She looked at Dorian. "Three bells. No more. You have until tomorrow's dark." She rose. She would not stay. She said the tavern had a bed and she had walked far and needed ale before she could speak of anything gentle. She touched Lyra's cheek once and left through the arch, small and bent. Dorian and Lyra returned to the ridge together. He lit the forge. She sat on the anvil block and sorted iron scrap while he worked, and their hands passed the tools back and forth without a word needed. When he burned his wrist she took it under cool water and held it longer than the burn required. He did not pull away. She looked up and found him watching her, and neither of them looked down. By midnight the first bell hung cooling on its hook. Lyra knew the name of what was coming. She knew how to answer it. She also knew, sitting in the forge light with Dorian's shoulder against hers, that she was no longer only afraid.